Devoid
by AllAboutTheDRAMA
Summary: In which Violet is the ghost. Violate AU


**Alright, I'm just going to start this off with a full disclosure- I make no promises that I will finish this. I always start off optimistically and end up disappointing myself and everyone else. So this is a fic that I hope to finish, but I can't promise I will.**

**Also, to address the timeline, I really was stuck on the idea of Violet killing herself on the same day Kurt Cobain did, but to make that work, the Langdon's life in the house would have to be pushed back a while. I'll address more at the end.**

**2015**

Tate Langdon leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the car window and stared up at the mansion. His mother was already tottering halfway across the lawn, one hand patting and fluffing her hair. Addie was bounding along behind her, laughing. Larry stood in the doorway, smiling at them all with that shit-eating grin of his.

A grand opportunity, Constance had said. To move out of their shitty house in the projects where all their neighbors hated them to a fucking murder house.

Pure coincidence that Constance broke up the marriage of a guy who happened to live in their old house.

Before Hugo Langdon had had enough of his freak show of a family and left them, apparently they'd had a charmed life, according to Constance. And the best way to fix the shit-show it had turned into was by getting back into that house.

But Addie was happy, and that counted for something. Although he couldn't say the same for Beau.

Tate turned to look at his brother, and felt bile rise in his throat as he pressed his hand onto the edge of the dog crate Constance used to transport Beau. "Hey, don't worry. You'll be out soon." Beau made a soft snuffling noise.

Tate's fists clenched in anger around the mesh on the front of the dog crate. As if craniodiaphyseal dysplasia wasn't enough, Beau had a learning disability too. Constance didn't care how many doctors tried to talk to her, tried to tell her that if she would just let him interact with people he'd develop on a nearly average track, but to her, the only worse shame than having a disabled child was having an ugly one.

Larry tapped on the window, jerking Tate out of his thoughts. "Hey buddy. I was just going to help you unload."

Tate pushed the door open, ignoring the way Larry jumped back to avoid getting hit. He tugged on the crate out of the seat after him, grunting. It was too heavy, he knew, but like hell he was going to let Larry carry his older brother into this fresh hell.

It took a few hot minutes, but he finally got the crate in the house. Larry followed after him, carrying a few boxes from the car and chattering inanely about the school Tate would be starting in a few days.

"Oh, Tate, honey, I'll take Beau up to his room," Constance said, unlatching the crate. "Could you help Larry put the boxes away?" She took Beau's hand and began to lead him up the staircase.

"Where's he staying?" Tate asked.

"He's going to be up in the attic," Constance said, touching her face. "It's a nice attic," she added lamely.

Addie tugged on Tate's sleeve. "Can you help me bring my boxes up?" She asked.

Tate nodded, his jaw clenched. If it weren't for the fact that his brother and sister needed him, depended on him to protect them, he'd be out of the house as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Sure thing, Addie."

Tate lay on his bed over the covers. The only concession he'd made to the idea of sleep was toeing off his sneakers. He absentmindedly ran his hand over the navy comforter, plucking at it. Larry had told him that it used to be a guest room, but he was free to decorate it as he wished. Addie had taken to the challenge enthusiastically, already pinning up dozens of photos on her walls.

It had been a whim, the first time he'd bought her a disposable camera. She'd been bugging him in the drug store, she liked the pattern on it. Ever since, she went through four or five a week, and Tate was always having to take them to the drugstore to have them developed. And she never threw out a picture. No matter how poorly it came out, it had gone up onto the wall in their old house, and apparently the tradition still stood.

Beau's room was a musty old attic with boxes of stuff that belonged to previous owners.

"I've been meaning to clean it out for ages," Larry had said over dinner earlier that evening. "Same as the basement. But it's an old house with a long history, and a lot of the stuff from the previous owners tends to accumulate. But I'm sure Beau won't mind sharing for a few weeks."

"Well, maybe we could ask him if he came down for dinner."

"Tate, honey, it's been a long day, you know how tired Beau gets."

Tate slammed his fork down on his plate and stood. "Goodnight," he said tersely.

"Tate, you're not excused-"

"I'm not hungry." He snapped.

Addie and Beau. He had to remember that he was still there for Addie and Beau. If he wasn't there for them, who knew what hell Constance might subject them to? So if that meant sitting in silence while Beau was sent up to the attic, when all he wanted to do was scream, it was worth it if that meant he could stand between him and Constance when she was drunk and decided to use Beau as a means to put out her cigarettes.

So Tate went up to 'his' room, and shut himself in the bathroom. It only took a minute before he was carefully, methodically, drawing lines across his wrists with a razor blade, inking them with blood.

**1994**

Violet Harmon swallowed a bottle of pills at three am on April 5th...

She'd bought the Oxy from a girl in her history class who'd promised it was like floating. She was rather apprehensive, marijuana made her paranoid and the last time she'd taken acid the world had melted around her and she saw devils and monsters and had spent days trying to pull herself together. But hey, she'd always been a firm believer in second chances, and once she got enough down it wasn't as if it would matter anyways.

...in what would eventually become Tate Langdon's bathroom.

**So, that's the prologue. I'll try to write some more, but as I am literal trash, there are no promises.**

**Also, in case there was any confusion, Constance and Larry's storyline is the same, just shifted forward two decades and she didn't live next door to the Murder House. It's almost four am, that probably didn't make sense. If there's any questions, ask me in a review and I'll try to clarify.**

**And if anyone is wondering why Tate is rather normal, I think that having grown up in the Murder House probably poisoned his mind, so right now he's just your average teenage angst-case.**


End file.
